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3 Responses

Yes it's acceptable - the key is utilizing CSS and use a DOCTYPE with a DTD to present a different UX based on the device. Work with an experience coder who can structure the page template to put the content first, minimizing scripts, etc - you want to score high on the Google page speed test (https://developers.google.com/pagespeed/).

Then test across all devices you think 80% plus visitors will be using (check your Google Analytics to profile browsers, OS, devices and resolution)

BTW - Here's what Google has to say about SEOmoz (scoring an 83/100)High priority. These suggestions represent the largest potential performance wins for the least development effort. You should address this item first:Leverage browser cachingMedium priority. These suggestions may represent smaller wins or much more work to implement. You should address these items next:Minimize redirects, Optimize imagesLow priority. These suggestions represent the smallest wins. You should only be concerned with these items after you've handled the higher-priority ones:Inline Small CSS, Enable compression, Defer parsing of JavaScript, Minify CSS, Specify a cache validator, Minify JavaScript, Minify HTML, Specify a character set, Optimize the order of styles and scripts, Remove query strings from static resources, Specify a Vary: Accept-Encoding header

Responsive design seems to be everywhere now and your point above seems to touch on this. From a UX perspective there really isn't a perfect design that caters for every single display and user. Google Analytics allows you to track screen resolution so I suggest that for any particular track this for a while and if there are mutliple types then think of designing to cater for it.

However even though I am in website design I tend to head for he safety of the middle ground and have not yet fully dived into the HTML5 /Responsive area yet as most customers are not demanding it.

However as the tablet and smart phone become the default device as opposed to the fun one it may become an issue.

SEO Wise I don't think there's any issues, though I wonder what resolution the Googlebot reports itself as having. It's important though that you do it the way Chas Blackford states; if you have actual server side code that changes a bunch of things around based on resolution then you might get in trouble. This is an interesting article about using stylesheets to segment mobile layouts (it also mentions Media Queries which are kind smart/new phone specific):

There are some implementation issues, the most important of which is reliably getting the resolution from the agent. Essentially, you can't guarantee it 100% of the time. From what I've read a combination of user agent string matching and resolution detection can probably get you most of the way though.

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